Are you interested in Bible Congruence?

by sabastious 130 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  PSacramento

  Psac, I'm really trying to understand but I can't get this straight in my head... You seem to reach some similar conclusions as those of us who consider the bible to be just another book and Jehovah & Jesus to be just another couple of imaginary gods.

  The bible is just a book, yes, but it also has, within its pages, the path to God and that is Jesus, his Son and the teachings left to us.

  Why do you stop short of finding the entire bible to be just another human conception?

  Because not ALL of it is. The bible is not all of one thing and nothing of another and has never been just that.

  It is a book of history and stories of an ancient people, it is a book of hope, faith and dreams of that people and their decendants, it is a book that shows the good, bad and ugly of that history and it is also a book in which some people, inspired by God, tried to pass along what God is, what god wants and what God "requires" of Us and how we can "find" God, IF we choose to look.

  How does one have faith in a personal Christian god without accepting the Bible? (TEC gave me her perspective a while back but it lacked logic that I need before I can put faith in any book or god again. No offense, TEC, I'm just saying I don't have that connection with Jesus to let faith patch up the holes. And I don't know how to have that connection to Jesus without faith. It's a bit of a catch 22 that I think a loving god would've worked out in advance.)

  Well, I can only speak for myself, but the whole point is PERSONAL relationship with God, not with a "book".

  You need to accept the bible for what it is and what it isn't.

  How do you know which parts you can trust? If you can't trust all of it, I don't see how you can trust parts of it. You might say, "well, everything that talks about Christian love"... but you'd sound exactly like my mother, who said she ignores the negative things about the WT Society and only looks at the good things.

  It's not aboiut ignoring the bad stuff, you CAN'T do that, you have to try to UNDERSTAND tha bad stuff and understand what man "saw" and "understood" about it when he decided to write it/pass it on his views.

  How do you know which parts to trust?

  That is a THREAD unto itself !!

  Doesn't work for me. When a group or a book claims to be backed by the omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator of the entire universe, I expect a little more than ever-changing doctrine or a holy book that is only half accurate (more credit than it deserves).

  The Book, like any book, is only good for it's intented purpose and the bible was NEVER meant to do anything bout "point" the way to God, the rest:

  Finding God, KNowing God, Accepting God, etc, is up to US and the bible can't do that for Us.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  So why the Bible and not the Koran?
• 

  PSacramento

  So why the Bible and not the Koran?

  Or the I-CHing?

  Why not any other of the many "holy books" of the many other religions?

  A very good question but one that EACH reader must ask themsleves and find the trith out for themselves, it's not one of those things that canbe answered by anyone else.

  Many find their truth in the Koran and there is much truth and love in the Koran, just as there is truth and love in the vast majority of the books of other religions because they all acknowledge a "universal truth" which is a "universal moral law".

  The bible, especially the NT goes beyond that and what makes it unique is that it claims this:

  There is nothing man can do to "saved", we are "broken" and no amount of Laws and traditions and sacrifices and meditations will ever make is "holy enough" to be saved, so what can be done by Us?

  Nothing.

  So God did it for us, in the life and death of his only begotten Son Jesus, God became Man and died wiihout sin because we can't do it ourselves.

  I don't know of any other religion in which God sacrificed himself for his followers out of pure love and to give htem an everlasting gift ( Grace).

  God is wo far "up high" that there is no way for us to "get there", so God came DOWN to Us.

  If you accept this then that is why "the bible and not the koran".
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  You need to accept the bible for what it is and what it isn't.

  I accept that...

  ....the bible is an ancient book written by men for the sake of controlling people based on morals of that time.

  ...some events, people, and places described in the bible were real.

  I do not accept that ...

  ...it is a book of science, accurate prophecy, reliable history, or perfect morals.

  ...I can know what portions are reliable just from reading a certain passage to get a feeling about love, Yahweh, or Jesus.

  The bible, especially the NT goes beyond that and what makes it unique is that it claims this:

  Again, I don't see how we can determine with accuracy which passages are reliable based on it's own unique claims.

  I rode the faith train too long. Now I need empirical evidence that at least MOST of what's written in a book is reliable before I can put faith in the rest of it for which there's no empirical evidence.

  Buying things on faith seems to be the quickest way to get taken.
• 

  AGuest

  The bible is just a book, yes, butit also has, within its pages, the path to God and that is Jesus, his Son and the teachings left to us.

  Dearest PSacto, the greatest of love and peace to you... and please forgive me, but given all of the things people post here that "disturb" others... including what I may have posted... I have to say that this is one of THE most disturbing statements I've ever read here. My heart just felt a great squeeze... and I could barely get my breath.

  My Lord is not in the pages of a book, dear one, even those of the Bible. And the teachings left that are recorded in the Bible... are for unbelievers. Believers... are taught by the Holy Spirit, by means of the anointing they received from that One. Which anointing incites the law... that is written on our hearts... not in a book or on stone tablets. For true believers... that is the only "teaching" we need.

  But that is all I am going to say on this... except... please... consider what you've said here. Because perhaps you truly meant to state something else?

  Again, I bid you peace.

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  PSacramento

  Shelby,

  All I said is that, in the bible, we can find the path to God and that Path is Jesus and what I mean is that, in the NT in particular, you will find the things that lead us to Jesus. No, you do not find Jesus there, that takes accepting Jesus and beginning a personal relationship with Jesus, but in the bible we find the beginnings of an understanding of Jesus, that he is the ONLY begotten Son of God, that Jesus is THE WORD of God, that God is Love and in God there is no darkness and that this love is eternal and there for us always, we find that Jesus died for us in an example of pure love for Us all.

  The book is just that, a book, but to deny it the value that it does have is just as bad as exagerrating that value above our Lord.
• 

  PSacramento

  Again, I don't see how we can determine with accuracy which passages are reliable based on it's own unique claims.

  I rode the faith train too long. Now I need empirical evidence that at least MOST of what's written in a book is reliable before I can put faith in the rest of it for which there's no empirical evidence.

  Buying things on faith seems to be the quickest way to get taken.

  What kind of evidence do you need? what kind is accpetable to YOU? what do YOU NEED to believe ( not in the book but God)?
• 

  designs

  The reasoning mind can supercede cultural and religious practices. Brave people have stood up for human rights. Think of the Christian heretics who said No to Biblically sanctioned slavery. I fully expect that there are brave Muslims who will stand up and say No to the endemic violations of human rights in that religion.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  What kind of evidence do you need? what kind is accpetable to YOU? what do YOU NEED to believe ( not in the book but God)?

  Well, first if God is not communicating directly with me, I have to start somewhere, right? In this case, that somewhere is the Bible. So I absolutely have to verify that I can trust the Bible before I accept any of it's writings as authoritative. Before I believe anything about God, I need to know why I should buy into one holy book over another. Why start with the presupposition that book is true because of it's tone or feeling? That said, we can always eliminate books due to tone or feeling, if they are self-refuting/contradictory.

  in the NT in particular, you will find the things that lead us to Jesus.

  that takes accepting Jesus and beginning a personal relationship with Jesus, but in the bible we find the beginnings of an understanding of Jesus,

  But if I find a great number of passages to be downright silly, mythological stories, how can I possibly trust the"beginnings" as anything more? And as I asked above, why start with the presupposition that any of it is true simply due to it's tone or feeling?

  to deny it the value that it does have is just as bad as exagerrating that value above our Lord.

  Do you deny the value of the Koran? I'm only trying to search for truth from the most neutral position I can find and that is a lack of belief in any particular deity/holy book until someone can provide empirical evidence that said book is from a divine source, preserved through time, and accurately translated.

  Thus far that has not been done.
• 

  PSacramento

  Well, first if God is not communicating directly with me, I have to start somewhere, right? In this case, that somewhere is the Bible. So I absolutely have to verify that I can trust the Bible before I accept any of it's writings as authoritative. Before I believe anything about God, I need to know why I should buy into one holy book over another. Why start with the presupposition that book is true because of it's tone or feeling? That said, we can always eliminate books due to tone or feeling, if they are self-refuting/contradictory.

  God does speak to us directly, but most of the time there is "too much noise" for us to hear it and other times we ignore it because it doesn't suit us ( freewill and all that).

  You do make a very valid point, why should you believe in the bible over any other religious book? and shoudl you believe in all of it or only the parts that 'make sense" and how do we interpret these things and, well...we can be here forever and now you see why MOST people just take it or leave it and why those that take it tend to take it at face value, because QUESTIONING the bible makes us WORK for it and it is so much easier to accept what we are told and ignore what our very own reason and common sense and even morals point to as "questionable".